This board is about Egypt, but a good part of its contents deal with the issue of whether Africa -and Egypt whithin it- should de-learn centuries of knowledge done by and for Europeans (in the past) and Amerikans (now). And the other part about what knowledge tradition to adopt.

So here it goes a post about the effort of African nations to get rid of colonial bias in their own history and give Africa an African history.

What do you think?
Is it worth? Should we keep some the knowledge in its today's form or are we for a radical change of all history?

from The Times of Zambia
http://www.times.co.zm/news/viewnews.cgi?category=7&id=1113333916

Time to honour the real discoverers

By Readith Muliyunda

IT has been years since most African countries got independence
from Europe, breaking away from colonialism and slavery periods
that shamed the continent.

These activities left Africa scarred to date as the continent's
history got twisted, erased or stolen by colonisers and the so
called explorers.

When it finally came, Africa's long awaited victory against colonialism
presented an opportunity for the continent to find its lost and true
history -the history of our ancestors that could provide the
population with the real education about themselves, their spirituality
and their surroundings.

It was also an opportunity to do away with some of the Eurocentric
education that has for a long time alienated us from our
environments by teaching us more about Europe and its people and
less and less about ourselves.

This is the education that stole away our history and brainwashed us
into believing that everything good (ironically even on our mother
land) was either created or first seen by the European before the
African that had always lived there had actually seen it- however
possible that is.

This has been a huge burden that Africa is still struggling to offload.

Years of raping Africa off its resources and honour is reflected in the
reality we see on the continent today-a slice of it being the fact
that there are more monuments and places named after Europeans
than Africa's own indigenous people or heroes.

Many years of learning about Europe and almost nothing about
ourselves has left most of us feeling unworthy or lacking a history to
look up to.

But while many African countries are on the path to address these
issues in order to move forward and instill a sense of pride and
self-confidence, it seems others like Zambia are still lurking in the
dark as we blindly cling to the lies and burdens of colonialism.

In this day and age Zambia, in all its glory, is proud to announce to
the whole world the celebration of 150 years of European David
Livingstone's discovery of the Mosi-O-Tunya (Victoria Falls).

In case somebody did not know, Zambia has become a laughing
stock outside where the discovery concept of history's explorers has
not only diminished, but also lost its credibility, especially as nations
go about putting their indigenous history in order.

First of all, this obsessive Eurocentric concept of discovery beats all
logic and even by mere common sense, it raises questions as to
where the Africans that lived and died in Livinstone and around the
falls long before Livinsgtone apparently discovered it were? Don't we
know that Mosi-O-Tunya, which means, the smoke that thunders,
was the name given to the falls by the old time people of that area
because of the thundering noise it produced.

The indigenous people were not blind to the presence of the
falls-they saw it and they marveled at its wonder and thundering
waters, hence describing it as a Smoke that thunders.

Then a European guy, from somewhere in Scotland who was among
several others that went about pacifying people, comes to this
corner of the world and sees the falls.

And suddenly, the indigenous people are taken out of the picture and
ignored and this foreigner gets all the honour and glory of having
suddenly discovered the falls.

According to a book written by Mrs J.H Worchestra, Livingstone also
discovered Lakes Ngami, Shirwa, Nyassa (which he named lake
Victoria), Morero, the upper Zambezi and Bangweulu.
Shamefully, Africans in Zambians have bought into this discovery lie
and we are repeating it to our children today and those to come, at
a modern time like this when the whole world has come to realise the
idea of discovery, as a big joke-even in the Americas where famous
Christopher Columbus slaughtered the Amerindians while discovering
their land, taking away their ownership to date.

I am sure some of you are saying but Livingstone was a good man
and a missionary on top of that. Livingstone and other European
heroes may have been called anything as we have been taught by
Europe, but the truth remains just that.

And actually, it appears there were no good people in Africa. just the
other day, a big international ceremony was held in Europe to
celebrate the naming of a street (in Europe) after some of our
brilliant Africans.

The street is now called Musonda Chilufya. Really? And if Livinstone
was really a good man, which I do not doubt he was, he would not
have at least been so selfish as to go around changing names of
places and things wherever he strayed, and naming them after
himself or his relatives. He would have respected the people that he
found there by maintaining their names.

I recently bumped into Charles Randon, a Canadian here in Montreal
who had just returned from Zambia and this is what he said to me
when I told him I was Zambian; '' I was in Livingstone and came
across this teacher who had brought little kids to the falls.

The teacher throughout the time kept teaching the kids about this
hero Livingstone who discovered the Victoria Falls and everything
else about the glory of Europe.

Wondered

''It shocked me as I wondered throughout the process; don't
Zambians have their own history, about Zambian heroes that the kids
should know about other than foreign people?

I was expecting to find a free Africa. Tell me- you guys don't we
have indigenous history to celebrate and teach children about? How
can Africa claim to be free when its people have not even freed their
minds.''

This was so embarrassing. Indeed! Africa is still shackled mentally.
But I still managed to find words to respond to Randon.

I simply explained to him the deep-rooted European structured
education in our schools, that Zambia was trying hard and was
gradually getting rid off it. ''Look we are even overhauling the whole
constitution to usher in one that is based on our own ideas,'' I said.

Little did I know that Zambia was preparing to go global about our
deep-rooted ignorance by not only portraying that the whole bunch
of educated Zambians believed that Livingstone was the first one to
see our own beloved Falls, but actually toasting to this ëdiscovery
which without any reservations I call a big lie and an utter shame to
ourselves and to our ancestors that lived in those times.

Just try going on the Internet and pick up brochures that are using
the discovery world with Livingstone's picture everywhere, as if we
were still living in the colonial days. Surely can't we find something
local that we can use to woo tourists to the Falls, unless we attach
it to some European guy?

Baffour Ankomah, editor of the New African Magazine asks if
we as Africans can really call ourselves educated or merely eternally
brainwashed by European education.

Mr Ankomah says: No wonder somebody says PHD stands for
"Permanent Head Damage.'' If our heads are not permanently
damaged by Western education, who in Zambia in their right senses -
today, two thousand years after the death of Christ - will celebrate
the 150th anniversary of the discovery of Victoria Falls by David
Livingstone?

And you bet if you ask these Zambians celebrating Livingstone's
discovery of the Victoria Falls whether they are educated, yes will be
the chorus that will pour forth from their throats.

The question is how are we as Zambians, for God's sake, going to be
able to successfully deal with much more complicated issues of
sovereignty such as the on-going amendment of the constitution
whose reasons for change is because it is modeled on the British
concept if we cannot even get over the simple, straightforward and
common sense concept of discoveries?

Livingstone did not discover the Mosi-O-Tunya (we would even
rather bury our beautiful original name and uplift the name of Victoria
Falls), he just happened to be the first of the nosy (you can argue
this) Europeans to see the Falls. But it still does not provide an
excuse to celebrate him. Come on Zambia you can do better than
that!

Zambia would do well to get some lessons from our neighbours in the
Democratic Republic of Congo who after years of lies that King
Leopold, their Belgian coloniser was a hero, the stark truth of his
horrendous reign, of murders and raping of Congolese people were
unearthed.

The Congolese people today are furiously up-rooting his monuments
which stood majestically in the country's capital Kinshasa- expensive
monuments for which Leopold diverted the country's gold and other
mineral wealth.

Belgium, which had also benefited from this wealth that drove millions
of Congolese to their graves during Leopold's reign had to confront
its dark past by getting rid of the (King Leopold's) monuments, which
were dotted around its cities.

This is why South African President Thabo Mkebi has joined several
voices calling on Africa to de-learn some of these concepts that
have remained chained to their brains.

At the Association of African Universities Conference held in Cape
Town recently, Mr Mbeki observed that there was need for all
educational curricula in Africa to have Africa as their focus, and as a
result, be indigenous grounded and oriented.

"As we know, the centuries-old subjugation of Africa to foreign
exploitation, ranging from slavery to colonial system, which was
singularly designed to achieve maximum extraction and exploitation
raw materials, wreaked serious damage that continues to impact
contemporary Africa.

This was accomplished through a whole range of arrangements
including educational philosophies, curricula and practices whose
context corresponds with that of the respective colonial powers,'' Mr
Mbeki stressed.

We have learned enough about Europe (remember Africa learns about
Europe), but the rest of the world including Europe itself has learnt
absolutely nothing about us.

Their ignorance (about Africa) is shocking and makes some of them
come across as almost stupid.

But at the same time, it makes you feel sad to see how governments
(Western) that have for years, spent their time exploiting Africa,
have kept their people ignorant and blind to the reality of how some
of their acts and activities are directly intertwined with Africa's
perpetual struggles against wars, unfair trade to poverty issues.

However, there can never be anything much more stupid than being
ignorant about your own self and surrounding.

Africans should wake up from slumber to be able to restore our
history and take charge of our destiny.